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The Day Shall Come

Started by AzureSky, December 16, 2018, 08:18:05 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Danger Man

QuoteA supporter of Islamic State has pleaded guilty to plotting to bomb St Paul's Cathedral and a hotel.
Safiyya Amira Shaikh, 36, from Hayes, west London, admitted preparation of terrorist acts and dissemination of terrorist publications at a hearing at the Old Bailey.
It was alleged Shaikh made contact with someone who could prepare explosives, and went on a reconnaissance trip to scope out the cathedral and a hotel as locations to plant bombs.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/feb/21/isis-supporter-admits-plot-bomb-st-pauls-cathedral-hotel-safiyya-amira-shaikh

She couldn't blow up a paper bag but undercover officers egged her on and the papers are happy to say she was going to blow up St Pauls.


Shoulders?-Stomach!

Looking forward to question

'Is your next work in 2035 just going to be a man with his bum out next to a car bomb'

Hand Solo

"Chris, after the 10 years' research for your next film could experiment with the comedy format by putting some jokes in the script?"

the

Hang on, did people not find TDSC to be a funny film? You'd have to be pretty rigidly sour not to locate the funnies in it.

Hand Solo

Quote from: the on March 07, 2020, 11:22:12 PM
Hang on, did people not find TDSC to be a funny film? You'd have to be pretty rigidly sour not to locate the funnies in it.

No. Or Four Lions.. a few funny moments.. but I'd be hard pressed to compare them to the funny density of anything like a single episode of his television work, which seeing as he seems to spend a decade writing them, is worryingly odd.

the

But films aren't like his TV programmes. They place completely different demands on pacing, plotting, characterisation, production and dialogue. Going to to a cinema and expecting a 90 minute episode of Brass Eye is a fool's errand.

Despite that, Four Lions is a funny film as well. It's not an unfunny film is it.

Hand Solo

Quote from: the on March 07, 2020, 11:58:16 PM
But films aren't like his TV programmes. They place completely different demands on pacing, plotting, characterisation, production and dialogue. Going to to a cinema and expecting a 90 minute episode of Brass Eye is a fool's errand.

Despite that, Four Lions is a funny film as well. It's not an unfunny film is it.

I'm aware of that, I wasn't expecting Zucker brothers level stuff, but as comedies they both seem a bit 'bereft' to me.

Mister Six

Four Lions was hilarious. TDSC suffered because it was too funny/wacky, I think. Needed fewer yuks and more drama in the first hour or so to give enough weight to the ending.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

It was a fine line to tread having the central character be genuinely ill and also make fun of him, but it seemed to manipulate that too forcedly which is why I guess the end felt quite slight, or at least underwhelming when it ought to have felt powerful.

For what it's worth I thought it was reasonably funny, nowhere near as funny as Four Lions or as powerful.

Hand Solo

I'd agree that Four Lions is better, but perhaps I should say neither was as shocking, surprising or inventive as his TV work.. though as general 'comedies' I just found them very middling, certainly not something I'd return to very often. (Think I've only seen Four Lions twice, when it first came out and when I later bought it on DVD for a friend.) Will give The Day Shall Come another go down the road but that felt even less so a film I'd look forward returning to for just the comedic value. For someone who is held as one of the world's top satirists I don't think that's very good innings, especially when he takes a decade to write them.

the

Quote from: Hand Solo on March 08, 2020, 12:52:35 PMneither was as shocking, surprising or inventive as his TV work.

Again, he was never making longform narrative in his TV work. They're apples and oranges. It just sounds like you're dismayed that some unrealistic fantasy film in your head never came true.

If someone's making a comedy film and it doesn't work, the failing is normally either because the comedy doesn't sustain throughout the film, or the comedy is so heavy-handed that it damages the overall plot/point of the film and makes it seem noisy and trivial. To me, Four Lions and TDSC succeeded in not falling into either of these traps - the comedy energy was kept up throughout the films (and the character comedy was extremely well-written), yet the films had captivating meaningful plots which moved along at the right pace.

If I was going to level a criticism at TDSC, it would be that the FBI dialogue was a bit over-constructed, everyone was a little too 'smart-mouthed' which was jarring in places. But that's more of a dramatic complaint, because the dialogue was nevertheless very funny.

Mister Six

Quote from: Shoulders?-Stomach! on March 08, 2020, 08:13:44 AM
It was a fine line to tread having the central character be genuinely ill and also make fun of him, but it seemed to manipulate that too forcedly which is why I guess the end felt quite slight, or at least underwhelming

I thought the ending was powerful, but unearned by the preceding hour and 15 minutes. Which actually made it feel rather exploitative and cynical, even though I know from Morris' impassioned and thoughtful interviews that it was exactly the opposite.

sambwel

recently saw this and decided to wander in from the cold to find a thread here about it and share my thoughts, which are not a million miles away from this:
Quote from: Mister Six on March 08, 2020, 03:26:50 AM
Four Lions was hilarious. TDSC suffered because it was too funny/wacky, I think. Needed fewer yuks and more drama in the first hour or so to give enough weight to the ending.
i think the wackiness wasn't so much a problem in itself, but the fact none of it was grounded. the same jokes would have been much more satisfying in a context of well-drawn characters in a believable setting. instead the audience had to contend with a bunch of thin caricatures bouncing around environments that were transparently mostly not miami. by force of will i was able to appreciate some of the film but overall it fell flat.

i'm sure it's already been mentioned somewhere earlier in the thread, so apologies for not checking, but i note that in at least one promotional interview for this film, morris says he is considering a project to do with the iranian revolution and all the shady business behind and around it. a topic that interests me but if i'm honest i'd be more keen for him to put film to one side for now and go back to playing with radio again and have some fun, or heck, even write a book.

EBGB

Quoteenvironments that were transparently mostly not miami
In what sense?  I've never been to Miami, so I'm genuinely curious.

chveik

Quote from: sambwel on May 11, 2020, 05:43:20 AM
i'm sure it's already been mentioned somewhere earlier in the thread, so apologies for not checking, but i note that in at least one promotional interview for this film, morris says he is considering a project to do with the iranian revolution and all the shady business behind and around it. a topic that interests me but if i'm honest i'd be more keen for him to put film to one side for now and go back to playing with radio again and have some fun, or heck, even write a book.

I think Morris is confusing journalist work and film director work.

sambwel

Quote from: EBGB on May 11, 2020, 07:04:57 AM
In what sense?  I've never been to Miami, so I'm genuinely curious.
A lot of it was filmed in the Dominican Republic but I knew that going in so I guess stuff leapt out at me that might not otherwise have. I haven't been to either place though so I am probably, in a sharp break with internet forum tradition, talking out of my arse.

Quote from: chveik on May 11, 2020, 03:20:13 PM
I think Morris is confusing journalist work and film director work.
Four Lions worked, so I don't think it was wrong to attempt another satire that swims in similar waters. But I do think he lost sight of what makes a film work this time around. Something about it felt like a rudderless experiment, reminiscent of My Wrongs.

EBGB

I knew it had been filmed in the DR and Florida too, but I worked on the assumption that not having been to Florida (have been to DR), I couldn't judge how different they are for relevant scenes.  I follow Eddie Irvine on social media, and photos he posts of Miami look nothing like the images of the city I see in the media, but also little like TDSC other than the skyline at the beginning of the film.

NB that's not because I don't get worked up about location failures.  I have a handful of accuracy / continuity issues with the film, but not location ones.  Whereas the recent release of 'Emma', for example, puts Sussex next to the Cotswolds next to somewhere else entirely.  Now that, THAT, pisses me off.  Vernacular architecture blatantly differs even over a hundred miles in a way that modern urban buildings over several thousand miles often don't.

lemon pony

The film is now included with an Amazon Prime video subscription (in the UK at least). Warning: spoilers below.

I thought the film was fine, I enjoyed it a lot, though maybe it is a bit toothless. The humour is mostly very mild, but still diverting enough. I thought making Moses humourous made him very endearing. You could tell he was a perfectly harmless oddball despite preaching insurrection, and I found him and his family very sympathetic characters. I'd have appreciated his three main followers being more fleshed out though.

A lot of people seem to have felt the pacing was bad and the film was disjointed, or the plot was repetitive. I didn't find that at all, I thought the pacing was fine and the plot was actually very clever in the way it engineered a situation where Moses had a SWAT team training their guns on him while having done nothing he could actually be arrested for. That scene was a great encapsulation of the film's message that innocent people are being victimised. I also found the FBI scenes well-written and acted, I don't really get why people are saying they're awkward or bad. And of course Davis was great as Moses.

I admit that the film does seem to be lacking firepower though, and doesn't seem quite trenchant or hard-hitting enough. You really expect something more explosive from Morris. I think the film pales in the shadow of expectation somewhat and seems lessened because of what it isn't, which is a shame, because without all that expectation it may have been appreciated more for what it is. I assume that as he's got older some of Morris' rage has abated and his outlook has softened and that's why the film is as gentle as it is. But I still think it deserves huge credit not just for the worthiness of its subject matter but also its originality, given how derivative so many films are. Also maybe Morris couldn't utilise his usual take-no-prisoners approach because of the decision to make Moses so sympathetic. Perhaps for the first time in his career Morris has written a character he doesn't want to spit on, and this is what has "hobbled" him, if you want to call it that.

I thought the film made one major misstep, which was when Moses said he was going to call dinosaurs to help him. I just thought that was stupid. Obviously it was intended to get a laugh with it's ridiculousness but I do think that tonally it was wrong for the film and the character of Moses, it was too wacky and goofy, it made him just outright ridiculous rather than nuanced and I found it unfunny. I just couldn't buy that he would really believe in dinosaurs. All his other eccentricities I could buy but I thought the dinosaurs crack was just cheap. Also I admit the bit where he is revealed to be sitting on a horse while preaching wasn't very funny for me. But overall I don't think the film deserves much of the negativity directed at it.

Maybe also the film is a bit slight and could have used a big gun battle to liven it up a bit. But despite all this I'd have no hesitation saying it was great, I loved the story and characters and found it very entertaining.

AzureSky

Documentary on tonight that Chris mentioned in his research for the film:

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/in-the-shadow-of-911

From the director of Leaving Neverland, the bizarre story of how seven poor Black men in Miami became victims of an FBI sting, indicted for the biggest supposed Al-Qaeda plot since 9/11.

Frank Stallone

Quote from: EBGB on May 12, 2020, 11:01:44 AM
I knew it had been filmed in the DR and Florida too, but I worked on the assumption that not having been to Florida (have been to DR), I couldn't judge how different they are for relevant scenes.  I follow Eddie Irvine on social media, and photos he posts of Miami look nothing like the images of the city I see in the media, but also little like TDSC other than the skyline at the beginning of the film.

Yeah, I live in the Miami metro and I don't think they did a bad job with the location scouting in the DR. Miami covers a huge area and not everywhere is on the beach, art deco styled etc. It stops me from saying 'oh I know where that is shot', but the vibe is good enough.

(Old discussion I know!)


Mister Six

Quote from: Dineen on May 05, 2022, 01:54:26 PMRecent (18/04/22) article about Chris and The Day Shall Come here:

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/christopher-morris-explains-the-fbi


Good find! I hope it spurs a bit of interest in Morris and TDSC, although the intro is a bit of a chore to get through.

#414
Tried to watch it last night. I didn't make it past the first twenty minutes.Again.Chris talking about the movie interested me way more than what I've seen of the actual film. Apart from Marchant the cast seemed lifeless and over-exaggerated at the same time.The dialogue was bizarre and disjointed but not in the usual Morris manner. As someone previously mentioned, it seems like he didn't quite succeed at fitting heaps of journalistic material into the form of a "broader" comedy. Obviously the topic is very meaningful for him, and it sounds like he's in a good headspace, so I can't help but be happy for him.

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